How private credit cracks at BlackRock, Blue Owl could hit crypto and DeFi markets
The post How private credit cracks at BlackRock, Blue Owl could hit crypto and DeFi markets appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Cracks in the global private credit market are rattling investors, raising concerns the stress could spill into crypto markets. Bloomberg reported Friday that BlackRock’s $26 billion private credit fund has begun limiting withdrawals amid rising redemption requests. The move follows similar stress at Blue Owl, which sold $1.4 billion in loans last month to meet withdrawals and reportedly has exposure to a collapsed U.K. property lender. Shares of major asset managers including BlackRock (BLK), Apollo Global Management (APO), Ares Management (ARES) and KKR slid 4%-6% Friday, extending their 2026 rout. Read more: Blue Owl liquidity crisis has investors bracing for 2008-style fallout If redemption pressure forces private credit funds to unwind positions, it could trigger broader deleveraging across asset classes that could ripple through digital assets including bitcoin BTC$68,373.92, Andreja Cobeljic, head of derivatives trading at Swiss crypto bank AMINA Bank warned in an emailed note. Credit stress meets energy shock U.S. banks extended nearly $300 billion in loans to private credit providers as of mid-2025 and another $285 billion to private equity funds, Cobeljic wrote, carrying risks that credit woes could extend to the banking sector “In isolation this would be manageable,” he said. “But emerging in the middle of a broader global deleveraging event, alongside an energy shock and collapsing rate-cut expectations, it is a different conversation.” “For risk assets, including crypto, a disorderly unwind here would represent a significant second-order shock that current pricing does not reflect,” he said. Contagion to tokenized asset markets A second channel of credit risk could surface directly on blockchain rails. Tokenized private credit products — loans and funds packaged and issued on public blockchains as tokens — have grown quickly as part of the broader real-world asset (RWA) trend. According to data from rwa.xyz, the on-chain private credit market now stands…
Filed under: News - @ March 6, 2026 7:22 pm